National Civic Federation 
Will Consider Industrial 
wet and Military Problems 
7» Growing Out of the War 


AT ITS 


ANNUAL MEETING 


The seventeenth annual meeting of The National Civic 
Federation will be held in New York City, at Hotel Astor, 
on Monday and Tuesday, January 22-23, 1917, the luncheon 
of the Woman’s Department occurring Monday, and the 
annual banquei 61 Tuesday evening. 

In addition to the resumé of the year’s work by Presi- 
dent V. Everit Macy at the opening session, departmental 
reports will be made by L. A. Coolidge for the Welfare 
Department, August Belmont for the Workmen’s Compen- 
sation Department, Warren S. Stone for the Social Insur- 
ance Department, John Hays Hammond for the Industrial 
Economics Department, Miss Maude Wetmore for the 
Woman’s Department, Alton B. Parker for the Department 
on Reform in Legal Procedure, Jeremiah W. Jenks for the 
Department on Regulation of Industrial Corporations, 
Louis B. Schram for the Industrial Accident Prevention 
Department, and A. J. Porter for the Minimum Wage 
Commission. 

The other sessions of the meeting will be devoted to 
the consideration of some of the larger economic and mili- 
tary problems confronting the American people during and 
at the close of the European war, such as: 

‘The lesson from the mobilization on the Mexican border’; 

‘The indifference, if not positive opposition, of the wage- 
earners and farmers to all preparedness programs’; 

‘Will there be a flood of immigration or a flood of emigra- 
tion ?’ 

‘Must this country, to secure military efficiency, copy the 
paternalistic social program of Germany?’ and 

‘Can the great forces of production, of labor, and of 
finance be cemented into one big force to grapple with the on- 
coming problems?’ 

Commenting upon the subjects to be considered at this 
meeting, in a statement issued to the members of the 
Federation, Ralph M. Easley, Chairman of the Executive 
Council, says: 

“Whether the present move to end the great inter- 
national conflict proves effective or abortive, it vividly 
suggests the economic disturbance that is bound to occur 
in this country when peace does come. With our business 
to-day at such an abnormal tension that panicky conditions 
are as readily created by a threat of peace as by a threat 
of war; with the plants of the munition and kindred indus- 
tries shutting down in case of peace and throwing out 
thousands of wage-earners; and with the probable can- 
celling of war bonuses and lowering of abnormal wages in 
other lines, resulting in a possible unemployment situation 
similar to the one experienced in the winter of 1914-15, is 
it not time for the leaders of production, of labor and of 
finance to prepare to meet co-operatively that inevitable 


army would necessarily come from these classes. A com 
paratively small percentage of the members of our Nationa 
Guard to-day is drawn from the wage-earning or farmin; 
population. If any arguments are needed to emphasiz: 
the absolute necessity of having the hearty co-operation o 
these two preponderating forces, they can be supplied by 
the discussions in the parliamentary bodies of all the war 
ring nations. Little chance will there be for compulsory 
military service or even a compulsory military training bil 
to become a law in this country, if they are required, unti 
these problems are solved and also the great Middle Wes: 
comes to feel that it is as directly concerned in the defense: 
of the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts as are the seaboar¢ 
states. It is true that foreign fleets cannot as yet climt 
mountains or throw their shells 2,000 miles, but the 
Zeppelins and aeroplanes, the navies of the air, can react 
Chicago and Topeka as easily as New York or San Fran 
cisco. But even were the Middle West secure from direc 
attack, the paralysis of its industries and the stoppage o* 
the movement of its farm products would be just as great 4, 
the seaboard states capitulated to an invading force.” 


SOME REASONS FOR PACIFISM 

“It is not surprising that there should be such pacifism 
among people who had settled down to the conviction that 
civilization—religion, art and the sciences—had made wars 
a thing of the past. But there are some curious phases oi 
the situation that are not so clearly understood. For 
instance, at a time when, in all the great countries of 
Europe, the working men are pouring out their life’s blood 
and the working women are making untold sacrifices to 
save their countries from destruction, we have in this 
country the spectacle of a body of professedly anti- 
patriotic people, composed of radical preachers, radical 
college professors, socialists, anarchists and extreme 
pacifists, viciously denouncing all proposals to prepare our 
nation for defending itself against threatened attacks from 
either without or within. And this they are doing in spite 
of the generally recognized fact that our country is to-day 
almost equally hated by the people of the Entente Allies 
and those of the Central Powers, and that, while to-day we 
might have to prepare for attack by the Central Powers 
should they win, to-morrow such attack might come from 
the Allies should they be victorious; or the next day we 
might have both groups to fight in case they should arrive 
at an adjustment of their differences, and should feel 
that our gold and great wealth might be needed to pay some 
of their staggering war debts, or that South America might 
be a good country to divide up. In connection with this 
fact it has been asserted that a high official in Germany 
said to the American Ambassador last fall, when the Sussex 
controversy was at an acute stage: “Do you realize, Mr. 
Ambassador, that we have 500,000 trained and armed sol- 
diers in your country?’ At that the Ambassador re- 
torted: “Do you realize that we have 500,000 lamp- 
posts in our country?’ This was a splendid retort, but 
hardly an adequate answer, although it was the only one 
he could make. But this alarming fact, if a fact, the pacifist 
might say, is more than offset by another statement from 
an officer of the Entente Allies’ army, who pointed out that 
Canada would, at the close of the war, have a million 
trained soldiers on our north, who might have some sug- 
gestions to make to us about the conduct of our internal 


affairs. In that event the 500,000 trained German reseryists 


Y 


National Civic Federation 
eS Will Consider Industrial 
Sve and Military Problems 
Growing Out of the War 


AT ITS 


ANNUAL MEETING 


The seventeenth annual meeting of The National Civic 
Federation will be held in New York City, at Hotel Astor, 
on Monday and Tuesday, January 22-23, 1917, the luncheon 
of the Woman’s Department occurring Monday, and the 
apnual banquet on Tuesday evening. 

‘In addition to the resumé of the year’s work by Presi- 
dent V. Everit Macy at the opening session, departmental 
reports will be made by L. A. Coolidge for the Welfare 
Department, August Belmont for the Workmen’s Compen- 
sation Department, Warren S. Stone for the Social Insur- 
ance Department, John Hays Hammond for the Industrial 
Economics Department, Miss Maude Wetmore for the 
Woman’s Department, Alton B. Parker for the Department 
on Reform in Legal Procedure, Jeremiah W. Jenks for the 
Department on Regulation of Industrial Corporations, 
Louis B. Schram for the Industrial Accident Prevention 
Department, and A. J. Porter for the Minimum Wage 
Commission. 

The other sessions of the meeting will be devoted to 
the consideration of some of the larger economic and mili- 
tary problems confronting the American people during and 
at the close of the European war, such as: 

‘The lesson from the mobilization on the Mexican border’ ; 

‘The indifference, if not positive opposition, of the wage- 
earners and farmers to all preparedness programs’; 

: oe there be a flood of immigration or a flood of emigra- 
tion?’ 

“Must this country, to secure military efficiency, copy the 
paternalistic social program of Germany?’ and 

‘Can the great forces of production, of labor, and of 
finance be cemented into one big force to grapple with the on- 
coming problems ?” 

Commenting upon the subjects to be considered at this 
meeting, in a statement issued to the members of the 
Federation, Ralph M. Easley, Chairman of the Executive 
Council, says: 

“Whether the present move to end the great inter- 
national conflict proves effective or abortive, it vividly 
suggests the economic disturbance that is bound to occur 
in this country when peace does come. With our business 
to-day at such an abnormal tension that panicky conditions 
are as readily created by a threat of peace as by a threat 
of war; with the plants of the munition and kindred indus- 
tries shutting down in case of peace and throwing out 
thousands of wage-earners; and with the probable can- 
celling of war bonuses and lowering of abnormal wages in 
other lines, resulting in a possible unemployment situation 
similar to the one experienced in the winter of 1914-15, is 
it not time for the leaders of production, of labor and of 
finance to prepare to meet co-operatively that inevitable 
shock? Already, in one of the nations at war, a joint com- 
mittee of employers and employees is at work trying to 
arrange an industrial truce to operate for three years after 
the termination of the conflict. In another nation co-opera- 
tive schemes of almost every description, backed by the 
Government, are being formed in preparation for the 
economic war that is sure to follow the military engage- 
ment. Can the great industrial forces of the United States 
be brought into a more harmonious relation that they may 
give the best that is in them to meet these grave problems, 
is the question which the Federation hopes to be able to 
have answered in the afhrmative, at its annual meeting, by 
leaders of these forces. 


MILITARY PROBLEMS 

“Not only is there need for such co-operation to grapple 
with economic problems, but there is also as great a need 
for co-operation among all elements in the nation to guard 
against possible military complications that may arise 
during this war, should it continue indefinitely, or it, at its 
close, a peace should be established that only means an 
armistice of longer or shorter duration to be followed by 
a greater war which the President predicts the United 
States will enter. ; 

“Reterring to the military situation, there will be 
trank discussion at the Federation’s meeting upon two dis- 
turbing phases which our people must face to-day. 

“The first of these is that our military and naval 
schemes for preparedness are in chaos—and this not due to 
want of patriotism on the part of any particular administra- 
tion, but to a lack of foresight on the part of all administra- 
tions since the Spanish War. ‘This again is nothing but a 
natural situation growing out of the belief of our people, 
thanks to the activities ot the peace societies of the world, 
that all wars between civilized nations had been made 
impossible and that the development of armies and navies 
was rapidly becoming supertluous: that we were 3,000 miles 
from anybody who could possibly think of attacking us, and 
that it would take so long tor any nation to get troups over 
here that we could equip an army of a million men in ample 
time to ‘eat them up,’ so to speak, as they landed. It is 
unnecessary to say that these illusions have been dispelled, 
the latter one by our recent attempt to mobilize 100,000 men 
on the Mexican border. It is generally agreed by experts that 
that mobilization, whatever the expense, and even if there 
had been no military necessity to justify it, was worth many 
times what it cost in enabling us to discover the utter weak- 
ness of our uncoordinated federal and state military 
systems, and the utter futility, not to say injustice of 
depending on the National Guard as constituted to-day for 
a first line of defense. 

“The second fact which stares us in the face is that in 
all movements for preparedness—defense leagues, security 
leagues and so forth—there are enrolled neither the work- 
ingmen nor the farmers of the country. On the executive 
boards of these organizations, not one representative of 
either of these classes can be found, while they are found 
without number in all of the anti-preparedness and various 
brands of peace organizations. This is an alarming element 
of national weakness, as in any war eighty per cent of our 


if 


{9 


f 
army would necessarily come from these classes. A com! 
paratively small percentage of the members of our Nationa 
Guard to-day is drawn from the wage-earning or farming 
population. If any arguments are needed to emphasiz? 
the absolute necessity of having the hearty co-operation 4 
these two preponderating forces, they can be supplied b} 
the discussions in the parliamentary bodies of all the war 
ring nations. Little chance will there be for Sal peae 
military service or even a compulsory military training bil 
to become a law in this country, if they are required, until 
these problems are solved and also the great Middle Wes} / 
comes to feel that it is as directly concerned in the defenses 
of the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts as are the seaboarc 
states. It is true that foreign fleets cannot as yet climl! 
mountains or throw their shells 2,000 miles, but the 
Zeppelins and aeroplanes, the navies of the air, can reacl 
Chicago and Topeka as easily as New York or San Fran, 
cisco. But even were the Middle West secure from direc 
attack, the paralysis of its industries and the stoppage o! 
the movement of its farm products would: be just as great 2 
the seaboard states capitulated to an invading force.” 


SOME REASONS FOR PACIFISM 

“It is not surprising that there should be such pacifism 
among people who had settled down to the conviction that 
civilization—religion, art and the sciences—had made wars 
a thing of the past. But there are some curious phases of 
the situation that are not so clearly understood. For 
instance, at a time when, in all the great countries of 
Europe, the working men are pouring out their life’s blood 
and the working women are making untold sacrifices to 
save their countries from destruction, we have in this) 
country the spectacle of a body of professedly anti- 
patriotic people, composed of radical preachers, radical | 
college professors, socialists, anarchists and extreme 
pacifists, viciously denouncing all proposals to prepare our) 
nation for defending itself against threatened attacks from 
either without or within. And this they are doing in spite | 
of the generally recognized fact that our country is to-day 
almost equally hated by the people of the Entente Allies 
and those of the Central Powers, and that, while to-day we 
might have to prepare for attack by the Central Powers) 
should they win, to-morrow such attack might come from) 
the Allies should they be victorious; or the next day we 
might have both groups to fight in case they should arrive 
at an adjustment of their differences, and should feel | 
that our gold and great wealth might be needed to pay some | 
of their staggering war debts, or that South America might 
be a good country to divide up. In connection with this_ 
fact it has been asserted that a high official in Germany | 
said to the American Ambassador last fall, when the Sussex 
controversy was at an acute stage: “Do you realize, Mr. 
Ambassador, that we have 500,000 trained and armed sol- 
diers in your country?’ At that the Ambassador re- 
torted: “Do you realize that we have 500,000 lamp- 
posts in our country?’ This was a splendid retort, but 
hardly an adequate answer, although it was the only one | 
he could make. But this alarming fact, if a fact, the pacifist | 
might say, is more than offset by another statement from 
an officer of the Entente Allies’ army, who pointed out that 
Canada would, at the close of the war, have a million | 
trained soldiers on our north, who might have some sug- 
gestions to make to us about the conduct of our internal 
affairs. In that event the 500,000 trained German reservists 
in this country would come in handy. In fact, they woula 
be the only people whom we would have to defend us from 
the million Canadians. But this brings the more disturbing 
thought that they might combine to make some suggestions 
to us. What would the pacifists answer? It goes without 
saying that if there are 500,000 trained German soldiers in 
this country they to-day naturally belong to the anti-pre- 
paredness movement, and while the Canadian million is not 
within our gates at this time it probably has friends who are | 
also making themselves felt in the anti-preparedness move- 
ment. These anti-patriots also choose calmly to ignore the 
possibilities on our immediate south and on our west. 

“Even the schoolhouses are being turned over to some 
of these radical anti-patriots, who are calmly debating the 
question, ‘Is this country fit to be defended?’ the ‘debate’ 
being participated in only by those who answer the ques- 
tion in the negative. In these same schoolhouses, as well 
as in certain pulpits, there is heard their bitter denuncia- 
tion of everything that savors of patriotism, even the word 
acting as a red rag. This hatred of patriotism is taught to 
the children in the Socialist Sunday schools, the word being 
placed on banners in the form of an acrostic, as follows: 


Powder 

Asinity 

Trouble 

R 

I 

O 

ay 

Idiocy 

Suffering 

Murder 

Instead of patriotism they are taught “international- 
ism,” that being their fad of the hour notwithstanding the 
fact that internationalism has been shot to pieces in every 
country of Europe by the very socialists whose pre-war 
antics these people are now aping. 

“Tt will not do to belittle the effect of this propaganda 
on the ground that the Socialist Party, which has been 
largely leading this movement, fell back over 40 per cent in 
its votes at the recent election, because the significance of | 
the socialist sentiment in this country cannot be based upon 
its votes, most of the socialists remaining aliens, and boast- 
ing of the fact. Besides, there are several thousands of 
them in colleges, in pulpits, and in magazine and news- 
paper offices, where they can exercise a sinister influence. 
Again, the socialists’ fight against preparedness is not at 
all from the same standpoint as is that of William Jennings 
Bryan, Henry Ford or Jane Addams, who base their pacif- | 
ism on their beautiful ideals of universal peace and the 
brotherhood of man. The socialists do not want the Gov- | 
ernment to have back of it an effective army and navy, 
because they are trying to speed the day when they can 
overturn it and confiscate all the productive industries of | 
the country. In so doing naturally they do not want to 
have to meet an efficient military force. 

“The frank purpose of the socialists was voiced in an | 
editorial in The New York Call, the semi-official mouth- | 
piece of that cult at the beginning of the war when it said: | 


You Are Cordially Invited to Attend. If You ne 


ee 


“We have not started this thing (the war) and we hope 
that our correspondents will comprehend us when we say 
that, now that it is started, the most cold-blooded calcula- 
tion on our part at the present moment is that they should 
all bleed each other to exhaustion so that the coming social 
revolution may have an easier job of sweeping out the 
stinking fragments. We are through with protesting, 

ourning and deploring. THAT TIME HAS PASSED 
AND NOW WE STAND FOR DESTRUCTION—THE 
DESTRUCTION OF CAPITALISM.” 


IMMIGRATION 

Another problem growing out of the war which will 
be discussed and which seems to baffle any attempt at 
solution is the question of immigration. Those who con-- 
tend that, at the close of the world conflict, we shall have 
a flood of immigration and those who contend that we 
Shall have a flood of emigration have equally strong argu- 
ments. So likewise have those who predict that when 
peace is restored we shall have so many thousands of men 
thrown out of work in the munition and exporting indus- 
tries that the unemployment problem again will confront 
us ; and, in the same way, those who claim that the demands 
abroad for all our products, excepting war supplies, will 
be so great that these extra workers will be more than 
absorbed, resulting again in a serious shortage of labor. 

_ “Is our nation helpless in this situation, and must it 
wait until the end of the war to see who is right? Cannot the 
Government deal with the admission of aliens similarly as 
It expects to deal with the admission of foreign products? 
Should not the importation of wage-earners be regulated as 
certainly as should be the importation of manufactured 
products? If we are going to lodge in the Government an 
elastic power to protect our manufactures in this country, 
should we not also lodge in this same Government an 
elastic power to regulate the dumping of an oversupply of 
wage-earners upon our shores? 

“There are many organizations dealing with the immi- 
gration question from various standpoints. Some would 
make this country an asylum for all the oppressed of 
Europe; others see in free immigration only the demands of 
the employers for an oversupply of labor to hold down 
wages; some would shut down the gates of Ellis Island 
completely for ten years; and strangely enough this demand 
comes both from trade unionists and certain employers, 
while others have developed such elaborate schemes to 
educate and improve the lot of immigrants that it prac- 
tically amounts to a discrimination in favor of the foreign 
born over the native, and has the effect of dangling before 
the poverty-stricken of Europe the alluring promise of an 
education and a job. 

“That these international humanitarians in our midst 
will have abundant material to work upon, unless prevented 
by our Government, is stated by Judge Henry Neil of 
Chicago, who recently returned from a visit to England. 
Judge Neill is the author of the Mothers’ Pension system, 
and his trip to Europe was in the interests of that proposal. 
In an interview he stated: 

‘The Salvation Army in England is collecting large 
sums of money for the advertised purpose of shipping the 
war widows and orphans to other countries on the plea 
that England will not be able to care for the millions made 
dependent by war.’ 

“The proposal to give the Government a free hand in 
dealing with the admission of aliens, just as it will doubt- 
less be empowered to deal through the Tariff Commission 
with the admission of products, having in mind the interests 
of this nation alone, will be considered at the annual meet- 
ing, and if peace, whether temporary or permanent, should 
come out of the present efforts the United States might 
have to face this vital problem very soon. 


PATERNALISTIC PROPOSALS 

“A doctrine that is gaining considerable headway in 
this country, and one that will be discussed at the Federa- 
tion’s meeting, is that the great efhciency of Germany, as 
shown in her phenomenal military triumphs, is largely due 
to the humanitarian interest of the government in the wel- 
fare of the working classes, evidenced by its provisions for 
old age pensions, sickness and unemployment insurance, 
death benefits, so-called model housing schemes, and so 
forth. It is claimed that these measures have abolished 
poverty and pauperism, and have produced a contentment 
of mind unknown in this country. 

“The argument is made, therefore, that if the United 
States is ever to be efficient in a military sense, it must 
adopt these same policies, and there are organizations de- 
voted to the promotion of such schemes which make a 
powerful appeal to those who realize the real need to mini- 
mize conditions of poverty. 

“Tt is claimed by many writers that even individualistic 
England will emerge from the war as a socialist state be- 
cause of the taking over by the Government, under military 
necessity, of the direction of all private industries pro- 
ducing war supplies. 

“These ideas do not all emanate from socialists and 


_ other radicals, but can be found in the utterance of many 


men in the so-called world of capital. The military suc- 


| cesses of Germany in the war have so impressed the Ameri- 


can public that anything that is stated in reference to her 
successes along industrial lines is accepted without question. 

The absurdity of comparing the conditions of the work- 
ing people in Germany as well as in England with the 
working conditions of wage earners in this country is too 


| apparent to merit serious consideration. It is asserted that 


the official figures in 1914, for instance, showed that Berlin 
had more paupers per thousand than New York City, 
while it is stated on good authority that over 50 per cent 
of the families in Berlin live in two-room apartments, a 
kitchen and a living room—not a very wholesome housing 
situation. While in the matter of the prohibition of child 
labor, this country is in advance of any other in the world. 
And yet, a campaign of misinformation on the alleged 
advantages of the foreign workingman over the American 
is being conducted in this country without any challenge 
from those who are qualified to deny its soundness. But 
even if these measures referred to succeeded in abolishing 
poverty and making the workingmen contented, is there not 
a larger question in the background which would impel the 


' American people to pause before adopting the same 


policies? It is the evil effects of a paternalistic government 


on the moral fibre of the people. 
“This objection is well versed by that veteran labor 
leader, Samuel Gompers, President of the American Fed- 


be Present, Kindly Reply on the Enclosed Card 


eration of Labor, who stated recently with reference to the 
contemplated legislation for compulsory health insurance: 
__ ““Compulsory social insurance, in the countries in which 
it has been established, has taken the red blood out of the 
labor movement and out of the activities of the working 
people, and they have looked to the Government to do the 
thing for them that the men could do for themselves. It 
is a reversal of the whole policy and the historic develop- 
ment of the Anglo-Saxon race, and every movement of that 
character for the introduction of compulsory social insur- 
ance will simply take away so much of the self-reliance, 
the self-assertiveness of the men and women, and instead 
of their being red-blooded men and women who would 
present their claims upon their employers and society in 
assertion of their rights, they would look to Government 
to take care of them—not to themselves; and think that, 
in casting their votes once every two or four years, their 
destinies would be determined, and that in the periods 
between they would have nothing to do. As to the relative 
merits of what is proposed, we have done so much in 
improving the physique, the health, the mind of the workers, 
that, although it is all too slow, our voluntary system 
presents the only natural and rational movement consistent 
with freedom. We have learned to know what freedom is 
and what it means.’ 

“The position taken by Mr. Gompers on this matter is 
the same as the official position of the American Federation 
of Labor at its last two annual meetings, and also the posi- 
tion taken by the railway brotherhoods. 

“This subject will be discussed at the Civic Federa- 
tion’s meeting. 


THE RAILROAD CONTROVERSY 

‘Since our last annual meeting, the most serious rup 
ture threatened between capital and labor, so-called, was 
that between the railway brotherhoods and the railroad 
systems. It grew out of the demand by the 400,000 mem 
bers of these brotherhoods for an eight-hour day, with 
time and one-half as overtime pay. If that threatened 
strike had occurred, it would, in its magnitude and fright 
fulness of results, have borne the same relation to any 
previous industrial disturbance in this country as tha) 
borne by the present world war to any previous military 
conflict. This controversy was adjusted by an almost 
revolutionary legislative measure which, if it remains on 
the statute books, is likely to result in a number of evils 
only less harmful than the alternative of the strike. 

For years The National Civic Federation and all friend: 
of what is termed ‘the labor movement’ have been pro 
moting collective bargaining as the most intelligent anc 
humane method of dealing between employers and employ 
ees. And yet, when put to the most crucial test, the high 
est type of collective bargaining utterly failed between the 
largest and most intelligent organizations of wage earners 
and of capital. Does that therefore argue the inadequacy 
of collective bargaining? The National Civic Federatior 
had been responsible for the drafting of the so-called New 
lands Federal Mediation Act which replaced the Erdman 
Act. Congress had passed the Newlands Act at the re- 
quest of the railroads, the brotherhoods, and of the Civic 
Federation, all having declared their belief that its enact- 
ment into law would almost certainly prevent further large 
labor disturbances upon railroads, and yet in the recent 
crisis it proved totally ineffective. In view of this shatter- 
ing of some of the illusions of the friends of arbitration, 
mediation, and collective bargaining, the Federation’s com- 
mittee on Mediation Legislation began at once the 
drafting of a proposed substitute measure to present to 
Congress which it hopes will prove more effective in the 
future. This bill and the reasons for it will also be dis- 
cussed at the forthcoming annual meeting of the Federa- 
tion. . 

INTERNATIONAL PEACE PROPOSALS 

A question that looms large on the public horizon at this 
moment is, ‘‘What part shall this nation play in any interna- 
tional program looking toward the prevention of future wars?” 

The most widely advertised movement is that which seeks 
to secure a league of nations to enforce peace. This organiza- 
tion is led by some of our most distinguished publicists, headed 
by Ex-President William Howard Taft. 

Another movement, which is led by former Secretary of 
State William Jennings Bryan, is promoting the principles of 
what are termed the Bryan Treaties, which have already been 
entered into between the United States and nearly all the prin- 
cipal nations of the world excepting the Central Powers. 

There is a third movement looking to the establishment of 
a World Court, which is to be organized jointly by all nations, 
and to which all matters of dispute are to be referred. The 
aims of the first two movements are so diametrically opposed 
that their respective leaders, Mr. William Howard Taft and 
Mr. William Jennings Bryan, have announced a series of joint 
public debates to discuss their differences, 

There is a fourth view, however, which is not crystallized 
into an organization, but which is radically opposed to the 
first two proposals and is not enthusiastic over the third as a 
practical proposition, although, being a voluntary movement, it 
does not arouse the same criticism as the other two. 

The part of the program of the League to Enforce Peace 
which most excites opposition is the proposal that the United 
States shall use its naval, military and economic forces, in 
conjunction with other nations, against any nation that goes 
to war without first having submitted its case to a judicial 
tribunal for hearing and judgment, both upon the merits of its 
case and upon any issue as to its jurisdiction of the question. 
Or, if the tribunal decided that it is not a justiciable question, 
“it shall be submitted to a council for hearing, consideration 
and recommendation only.” 

It is contended by the experts in dealing with industrial 
strife that the principles underlying international and indus- 
trial disputes are identical and that the same reasons that cause 
compulsory industrial arbitration to fail will render nuga- 

tory any attempt at compulsory international arbitration. 

All these viewpoints will be presented at the annual meet- 
ing of The National Civic Federation. 


WOMAN’S DEPARTMENT 

The annual meeting of the Woman’s Department will 
be held coincidently, and among the subjects which will be 
considered are the national policy on prison reform; coun- 
try lite and rural betterment problems; the general sub- 
ject of immigration as it affects woman; endowment funa 
for chair for rural nursing, and woman’s part in the 
development of the idea of universal service to the State, 
especially dealing with physical training in the schools. 


